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She loved him. She knew it was foolish, since he didn't truly love her. She had loved both of them for so long. They were different. Completely unlike any two people she'd ever met. And this was why she loved them.

Today she had chanced upon him swimming alone in the Bath House. She slowly approached her beloved and he had come up from a dive into the pool striking his head against her nose, causing her to bleed.

She herself is far too ordinary. Others may have commented on how her beauty, but they would call just about anything beautiful.

To her, it was a hollow word. As a girl, she had once cavorted in a mound of fertilizer because she had believed that it would magically expedite her growth much like that of plants; for which a farmer relative of hers had named it "miraculous".

It wasn't until afterward that she had realized that the word "fertilizer" was actually synonymous with "horse shit."

From this day, Amy never trusted anything anyone ever said. If a pile of animal feces could be a called a "miracle," then the word "beautiful" can also be a euphemism for ugliness.

She had the misfortune of living in a city of lies. She had been born here and could see no means of her own to leave. Yet, they had been born elsewhere, in the outside world! Together they may conceive of a way to escape.

She had failed in her attempt to "persuade" his brother to take her. Take her from here. She had approached him once, just after midnight. She knew what others would only guess: he prowls at night. She could never remember seeing him during the day. She couldn’t quite say that if she had seen him, that she would have been capable of recognizing him because she never had the chance to see much of his face. Yet, because of the fact that he was even out at all during the night was indication enough of who he was. She was also sure, were it someone else, then they would not have left their home without the aid of lantern.

She had snuck out of her house wearing only a flimsy nightgown and had carried no light. Even though it was cold out, the nightgown was drenched in a sweat of anticipation so that it clung to her uncomfortably. She decided to take it off and as she pulled it over her head, she smelled him even before she had heard the ghostly flap of that cape he wore. At first, she had been afraid of that sound. It reminded her of window that had been left open at night; a window through which the wind might blow and rustle a curtain. A window through which something else far more sinister might crawl through... Yet, she had not run because her first sign of his passage had not been that sound, yet it had been his smell. It was the fact that he actually smelled, really. She was sure that he bathed; yet the smell which had wafted through her nostrils and electrified her brain with excitement had not been a smell which a body could naturally produce. What she had smelled was most assuredly blood. She finally extricated herself from the sodden garment and had carelessly rolled it up into a ball and threw it behind her into the bushes where it would stay forever for all she cared. When she was rid of it, her last shreds of modestly and the fear which it produced was gone. She at first held her arms across her breasts for a moment, and then let them fall seductively to her sides with her hands on her hips. She was ready.

As he passed the tree behind which she hid, she could see that he was definitely drenched in the stuff. It was also obvious that it wasn’t his own blood, because she saw that he was carrying the corpse of a deer slung almost casually over one shoulder. He must have been hunting. Surely, this thought would have driven her mad with fear. She knew that it should of definitely. Instead, it aroused goose bumps on her soft, slick skin. All at once, she was no longer afraid.

He sensed this change in her, because he stopped in mid-stride and had looked over his other shoulder and had looked right at her. She stood up straight and had stepped out onto the path to meet him.